Feds Say Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear Reactors Need More Oversight, NPR By WESLEY BROWN/ TALK BUSINESS & POLITICS 14 Mar 16 In an annual evaluation of the nation’s commercial nuclear plants, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Entergy Arkansas’ Nuclear One and Two units in Russellville were among three reactors that require increased oversight because of two safety findings of “substantial significance” in 2015…….
Eleven reactors need to resolve one or two items of low safety significance. For this performance level, regulatory oversight includes additional inspections and follow-up of corrective actions. Plants in this level are: Clinton (Illinois); Davis Besse (Ohio); Dresden 2 (Illinois); Duane Arnold (Iowa); Indian Point 3 (New York); Millstone 3 (Connecticut); Prairie Island 2 (Minnesota); River Bend (Louisiana); Sequoyah 1 (Tennessee); and Susquehanna 1 and 2 (Pennsylvania). Duane Arnold, Millstone 3, and Susquehanna 1 and 2 have resolved their issues since the reporting period ended and have transitioned to the highest performing level, NRC officials.
There were three reactors in the fourth performance category, or Column 4, including Entergy’s Arkansas Nuclear One and Two units in Russellville, and Entergy Corp.’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Mass. Pilgrim is in the fourth performance Column 4 category because of long-standing issues of low-to-moderate safety significance, NRC officials said.
Nuclear reactors in Column 4 receive additional inspections and increased NRC management attention to confirm performance issues are being addressed. Later this year, the NRC will host a public meeting in the vicinity of each plant to discuss the details of the annual assessment results………
ISSUES ARISE FROM 2013 ACCIDENT
The issues relating to the Entergy nuclear reactors in Russellville stem back to the events surrounding the industrial accident that occurred at the plant on March 31, 2013, which resulted in one fatality and eight injured personnel. At the time of the event, Unit 1 was shut down in a refueling outage with the reactor vessel head off and fuel in the vessel. Beginning in 2013, Entergy Operations officials and the NRC began extensive inspections of the flood protection program at ANO.
All told, more than 100 previously unknown flood barrier deficiencies creating flooding pathways into the site’s two auxiliary buildings were found. These included defective floor seals, flooding barriers that were designed, but never installed, and seals that had deteriorated over time. In one case, a special hatch that was supposed to close a ventilation duct in the Unit 1 auxiliary building in the event of flooding had never been installed.
In June 2014, ANO Units 1 and 2 received yellow violations because electrical equipment damaged during an industrial incident increased risk to the plant. Workers were moving a 525-ton component out of the plant’s turbine building when a temporary lifting rig collapsed on March 13, 2013, damaging plant equipment. Those violations moved both units from Column 1 to Column 3 of the NRC’s Action Matrix, which the agency increases its oversight of plants as performance declines.
Bowling said the NRC placed Arkansas Nuclear One in Column 4 in March 2015 after issuing the two “yellow findings” for each nuclear unit related to the 2013 heavy equipment handling incident in which a lift operated by a contractor failed. Two subsequent yellow findings for Arkansas Nuclear One and Two related to flood barrier effectiveness had the cumulative effect of moving the plant to Column 4………http://ualrpublicradio.org/post/feds-say-entergy-s-arkansas-nuclear-reactors-need-more-oversight#stream/0
